The Story of Rome (41 page)

T
HE
Senate no sooner knew that Catiline was with the army than it proclaimed both him and Manlius public enemies.

A messenger was sent to the camp to offer pardon to any who should leave it within a certain time. But no one took advantage of this offer, while many soldiers continued to crowd into it. Rome grew more and more alarmed.

Antonius, the colleague of Cicero, was sent at the head of an army to Fæsulæ. As he was a friend of Catiline he pretended to be ill, and his army did the conspirators no harm. Cicero himself stayed to guard the city, for it was suspected that there was treachery within her walls.

Soon after this the Consul unexpectedly received the proof of the conspirators' guilt.

A Gallic tribe that had been forced to pay a heavy tax to the Romans now sent envoys to Rome to beg that the tax might be removed.

As it chanced, the conspirators in the city saw the envoys, and tried to persuade them to hasten back to their tribe and send a troop of cavalry to the help of the camp at Fæsulæ. They were assured that if they would do this Catiline would see that the money tax was removed.

The envoys promised to aid the conspirators, but they had scarcely left the city when they changed their minds.

Catiline's plot might fail, they said to one another, and then what would happen to their tribe for sending soldiers to his aid, while, if they told Cicero all that they knew, the Consul would certainly reward them well? So they went back into the city and told Cicero what they had been asked to do.

The Consul knew that he now possessed the proof he had so long sought in vain. Moreover, the whole city would rise in fury when she heard that the conspirators had wished to invade Rome with the aid of Gallic troops. So he promised to reward the envoys well if they would do as he bade them.

They were again to leave Rome, and to appear to be faithful to Catiline. But when they had gone a little distance they would be arrested. Now were they to resist overmuch, while the letters they carried were to be given up after a mere show of reluctance.

The envoys agreed to do as the Consul wished, and soon the letters which betrayed the four conspirators within the city were in the hands of the Consul. They were at once arrested and put under guard, while one of them, being a prætor, was forced to resign his office.

Cicero then assembled the people, and delivered his third speech against Catiline and his fellow-conspirators.

When the people heard of the attempted league with Gaul they were roused to a frenzy. Their own leaders had betrayed them, and they were loud in their praise of Cicero for detecting the traitors' schemes.

The Consul had power to pronounce sentence of death on evil-doers, if it seemed necessary for the good of the State. But he did not use his power, begging the Senate rather to counsel him as to what sentence they should suffer.

Many of the senators urged that the four guilty men should be put to death, but Julius Cæsar was more merciful.

"Their crimes," he said, "deserve the severest punishment, but when the excitement is over, severity beyond the laws will be remembered, the crimes forgotten."

He then proposed that the four men should be imprisoned for life, and that their property should be confiscated.

Cæsar's words almost won the day. But Cato, the great-grandson of the Censor, spoke violently against mercy being shown to the conspirators.

Cato was one of the sternest of the Optimates, and his influence was great enough to sway the Senate. It now voted by a majority for the death of the prisoners, and the Consul at once ordered the four men to be strangled.

As Cicero left the Senate-house and hastened through the crowd in the Forum, he said to the people: "They are dead." The citizens seemed satisfied that their city would now be safe, while Cato and Catulus commended Cicero as the "Father of his country."

Early in 62
B
.
C
.
Catiline tried to march into Gaul with the troops that had remained faithful to him. But the Roman army was watching for him. He was forced to fight, and nearly all his men were slain.

CHAPTER CV

Julius Cæsar Is Captured by the Pirates

J
ULIUS
C
AESAR
was born in 100 or 101
B
.
C
.
, and belonged to one of the most illustrious patrician families of Rome.

From his boyhood, Cæsar was a favourite with the people. They liked his frank, bright ways, and then he spent money lavishly, and that was what they thought the young nobles ought to do.

But they never dreamed that this youth was different from the other pleasure-loving youths of Rome, that in his heart he hid great ambitions, and had already, in his own way, begun to pave the way toward their fulfilment.

That he was fearless and not easily turned away from his purpose he soon showed. Even of Sulla in his most powerful day he felt no dread.

When Sulla commanded that all those who were connected with the party of Marius by marriage should send their wives away, Cæsar, who was then only nineteen years of age, refused to obey. So Cornelia stayed with her husband in spite of the danger they both knew they would incur by defying one of Sulla's commands.

Cæsar would indeed have lost his life, had not powerful friends begged Sulla to be merciful, adding that it was surely not necessary to put a mere boy to death.

But Sulla was a reader of character, and he believed that Cæsar was too clever not to be dangerous to the State.

To those who begged for his life, he said, "You know little if you do not see more than one Marius in that boy."

When Cæsar heard what Sulla had said, he escaped to the Sabine hills and hid himself, until Rome should become a safer city.

Some time after this the young patrician was on his way to Rhodes to study rhetoric, when he was captured by pirates. For this was before Pompey had cleared the seas of the terrible sea robbers.

The pirates did not know how great a prize they had captured when they took Julius Cæsar prisoner, and they demanded merely twenty talents for his ransom.

Cæsar laughed, for he valued himself at more than that modest sum, and offered them fifty talents.

He then sent his followers away to raise the money, while he stayed alone with the pirates, save for one friend and two attendants. And this he did, although he knew that they often put their prisoners to death.

For thirty-eight days he lived with them, sometimes amusing himself by joining in their sports, sometimes reading to them poems he had written, or rehearsing speeches he had prepared.

To these they would listen, indeed, but without giving any applause. Then Cæsar would grow angry with them, calling them names, saying that when he was free he would crucify them.

At other times, if he wished to sleep and the pirates were making a noise, he would send to bid them be quiet.

The pirates laughed at the strange ways and words of their captive, and paid no heed to his threats. But Cæsar was in earnest when he was angry, and no sooner was his ransom paid and he set free, than the first thing he did was to hire ships to go in search of these very same pirates.

He soon found and captured them, and in the end he crucified them, as he had more than once threatened to do when he was their prisoner.

Cæsar then went to Rhodes to study rhetoric. And he profited by his studies, for on his return to Rome his eloquence won him fame.

As for the citizens they still loved him, for he was kind to them and feasted and spent money as before. But that he would prove a great soldier, one who would astonish not only Rome, but the whole world, there was nothing yet to tell.

Cicero, indeed, as Sulla had done before, saw that Cæsar was ambitious. Beneath his pleasant smiles and ways, Cicero sometimes thought that the young patrician had a hidden purpose, which he would not easily lay aside. At other times the orator thought that, after all, Cæsar was a trifler and nothing more. "When I see his hair so carefully arranged," says this wise man, "and observe him adjusting it with one finger, I cannot imagine it should enter into such a man's thoughts to subvert the Roman State."

But whatever others thought, there was no doubt that to the people Cæsar had become an idol. And he was pleased that this should be so, for he liked well to be popular and beloved.

About the year 67
B
.
C
.
, Cæsar was appointed to superintend the repairs of the Appian Way. On these repairs he spent large sums of his own, and the people whispered to one another that this was done for their welfare, and they smiled more warmly than ever on the young noble.

But he looked after their pleasures as well as after their more practical welfare. For he held a show of gladiators in which six hundred and forty took part, to the delight of the citizens, while the games he celebrated were more magnificent than those usually seen in Rome.

The height of his popularity in these early days was reached, however, when he restored the statues of Marius and of his triumph over Jugurtha and the Cimbri. These had been banished from the Capitol during the time that Sulla ruled the city.

In 63
B
.
C
.
Cæsar determined to put his popularity to the test. The high priest had died, and Cæsar wished to succeed him. It was true that Catulus and another Roman of influence were known to expect that the appointment would be given to one of them. But in spite of this Caesar insisted on letting the people know that he too was a candidate.

Catulus, dreading a contest with one who was so popular, offered Caesar a large sum of money if he would withdraw.

But Caesar, although he had spent all his money and was deep in debt, scornfully refused the offer of Catulus. "I would borrow a larger sum to carry on the contest," he said, with proud defiance.

On the day that the votes were to be taken, his mother accompanied him to the door of their house, her tears betraying her anxiety. But he, as he embraced her, said, "To-day you will see me either high priest or an exile."

The excitement ran high as the different tribes gave their votes, but it was Cæsar, the idol of the people, who won the day.

It was what, in his proud confidence he had expected, but he was pleased, while the people were elated.

But the nobles were exceedingly annoyed. What would the citizens do next? Would they not be content until Julius Cæsar reigned supreme in Rome?

CHAPTER CVI

Cæsar Gives up His Triumph

T
HE
Senate and the nobles now began to fear the ambition of Cæsar. And they were glad to give him the command of the army in Spain, so that he might, for a time at least, be away from Rome. They hoped that the people, who were always fickle, would find a new favourite in his absence, one whom they might be able to influence. Already they knew that they could not move Cæsar to do their will.

So in 61
B
.
C
.
Cæsar went to Spain. With new duties he quickly developed new powers. There was now no time spent in idle pleasures, or even on the more serious joy of composing poems. His whole energy was devoted to his soldiers. Soon he had added to the numbers of his army, and marched into districts as yet unconquered by Rome.

Everywhere he went he was victorious, and when he returned to Rome it was to claim a triumph.

Now he had arrived before the city gates just in time for the election of Consuls. To stand for the Consulship it was necessary to enter the city and proclaim oneself a candidate. To enjoy a triumph it was necessary to stay outside the walls until the Senate has decreed that a triumph was deserved.

Cæsar was thus in a strait, and of this his enemies were not slow to take advantage. For when he asked the Senate to allow him to stand for the Consulship without entering the city, it refused. And more than that, it would not decide that he should enjoy a triumph until it was too late to have it and stand for the Consulship as well.

Which should he give up? Cæsar himself, being wise, had no doubt. But the Senate and the nobles hoped that he would choose the triumph. That was a glory that would soon be forgotten, while if he became Consul he would be more powerful than they cared to think.

But Cæsar gave up the triumph and proclaimed himself a candidate for the Consulship. And his enemies were forced to look on as he walked to the assembly of the people between Pompey and Crassus, the two most powerful men in Rome. With their support he was elected Consul with unusual honours.

It was now that Pompey, Crassus, and Cæsar formed the secret union which became known as the First Triumvirate.

The laws the Triumvirate brought forward were framed chiefly to please the people and to win their support. One was regarding the vexed question of allotments of land for Pompey's veterans, another was about the distribution of corn.

When some of the senators and the Optimates tried to hinder these measures from becoming law, Pompey took an armed force to the Campus, to keep order it was said. But every one knew that the real reason was to make the voters afraid to oppose the Triumvirate.

A year passed and Cæsar's Consulship came to an end. He then demanded that the Senate should give him Gaul as his province. As a rule a province was allotted to an officer for a year, but Cæsar insisted that he should have Gaul for five years.

The Senate, again thinking it would be well that he should be absent from Rome, granted his request. And so in 58
B
.
C
.
Cæsar left Rome to begin his new duties in Gaul.

But before he left the city he arranged that the chief offices of the State should be held by friends of his own, so that his enemies might not grow too powerful during his absence.

Cicero had shown himself no friend to Cæsar, and he was now forced either to leave Rome or be brought to trial for executing the four Catilinarian conspirators.